Not Sweating the Small Stuff

Just In the Shadow of Fame?

Yesterday I came across a documentary on the Paris Opera Ballet, in the course of which Kyra Nijinsky talks about her father, Vaslav Nijinsky, who, as everyone knows, was the greatest male dancer of the Ballets Russes ...

In 'Le Dieu Bleu'

With Tamara Karsavina in 'Le Spectre de la Rose'

In 'Giselle'

In 'Scheherazade'

For a time the ballerino was the lover of the founder of that company, Serge de Diaghilev ...

... and, in the interview, the animosity of daughter (and mother) towards the impresario is more than palpable.

I recall from Richard Buckle's definitive book 'Nijinsky' that Vaslav had had a number of male lovers or patrons before Diaghilev - but was sexually disinterested, in general. So I suspect that his marriage to Romula Pulszky was something conventionally stable to grab onto as he descended into the madness which completely claimed him several years later.

Kyra had somewhat of a career as a dancer and I became aware recently that her special resemblance to her father had been exploited in a photo (or series of photos?) of her in one of his greatest roles, 'Le Spectre de la Rose' ...

Kyra Nijinsky in 'Le Spectre de la Rose'

Vaslav Nijinsky in 'Le Spectre de la Rose'

With all this material floating round in my my mind today, I was thinking that while Kyra's life could be judged from the point of view of her father's success it might be much more profitably approached from what she achieved.

Which brings me back to the documentary.

As well as being interviewed, it shows Kyra in another of her roles - that of some kind of Russian ballet expert/adviser - here in the mounting at the Paris Opera Ballet of a new production of the 'Polovtsian Dances' from the opera 'Price Igor'.

In the following clip, she seems to be teaching or perhaps more likely refining some steps with sexy Patrick Dupond ...


... in his role as the chief warrior ...

So I see Kyra Nijinsky as a big somewhat dominating personality that found a way of making an interesting life from some opportunities that came her way.

Ok, so what are we all going out to achieve tomorrow!